How’s that for a weird title?  Yeah, I didn’t want you to miss out on the recipe, but have a few other things to say first.  🙂  If you don’t want to hear about our medical drama, feel free to scroll to the bottom and find where the recipe is.

If you’ve been reading here very long, you’d know that last year was probably one of the most stressful years of my life.    For an explanation of that, you’d have to read this post, then you’ll understand why.

While things are going much better this year, we’re starting with our share of medical drama.  Thankfully none of it is life threatening.  It started with a routine CT scan for my 15 year old daughter.  She’s had 3 mastoidectomy surgeries so far in the past 2 years and the results of this CT scan showed that she needed to go for her 4th.  She has a cyst in her mastoid (area behind the ear drum) that keeps growing back.  Each time, our ENT surgeon has thought that he got it all, but it’s such a small area, it’s too difficult to see everything (especially the first time when it was swollen) and he believes there’s been microscopic pieces left behind, causing it to begin growing again.  So…last week, we went in and had that removed.  The surgery went really well, but now she’s having an allergic reaction to something that she had during surgery (is all we can figure).  She’s got a red ring around her ear and is so swollen.  We’ve been in touch with the doctor and we’re watching her carefully, but we (and she) are so ready to get her back to normal!

My 12 year old daughter has epilepsy and it’s been determined that she is going to get a vagal nerve stimulator.  If you’ve never heard of a vagal nerve stimulator, it’s been described as a pacemaker for the brain.  Basically, it’s a device that gives a nerve in your neck that goes up into the brain, an electric impulse, interrupting any seizure activity.  If she feels like she’s about to have a seizure, she’d always have a magnet with her that she could swipe across the site of the VNS, turning it on and helping the seizure to go away.  By having this device, she’ll most likely be able to get off of some of her medicines.  Currently she gets tired so easily and has some memory and learning difficulties, so we’re excited about this change.  Not necessarily excited about another surgery, but she is really hoping that this helps her to feel much better!

We’ve also been battling my 9 year old daughter’s asthma.  After a recent trip to the ER, we happened upon a doctor who grew up with asthma and had 2 sons with bad cases of asthma as well.  He was the most helpful doctor we’ve run into yet.  Unfortunately he does not have a practice that we can take her to, but…at least he gave us an amazing action plan.  Ever since we saw him, we’ve had a better handle on her asthma issues.

So, yes, we’re still on the medical drama train, but hopefully after this next surgery we’ll have a very uneventful year!  If not, I guess we’ll probably have our deductible met anyway.

In the mean time, I’m still working on getting organized, losing weight and growing this blog.  One of the ways that I grow the blog is by writing on other websites.  I’m honored to be a regular monthly contributor to the All You Magazine Blog.  This past week, I shared how to make lemon chicken in the slow cooker.  It can even be a crockpot freezer meal if you want it to be.  Click on the picture below to go directly to the recipe.

Very soon, if you’re an email subscriber of Sidetracked Sarah, I’ll be sending you my newest one week menu for free!  Be sure to be watching for it!  It will come attached to your email, as a thank you!  Hopefully by the end of this week…. we shall see how time flies this week.  🙂

I hope you have an amazing Monday!